History of the Kerguelen Islands
The history of the Kerguelen Islands is a history of an archipelago that remained uninhabited and undiscovered for virtually its entire existence so far, with its first human inhabitation only settling on the islands in the 19th century. Initially only a temporary settlement for whalers and sealers, the Kerguelen Islands saw an influx of inhabitants in the 1850s and 1860s from the colony of . The commencement of the saw another influx of inhabitants, the majority of which were fleeing for the approaching German Army. With the independence of the Republic of the Southern Indian Ocean Islands in 1956, the archipelago's capital of Port-aux-Français became the capital city of the newly-founded nation. As the Republic's largest and most populous archipelago it grew into a modern and relatively accessible archipelago, and a rich one at that after the discovery of oil fields. First appearance on maps The Kerguelen Islands' first appearance are on a map by from 1754, where they are titled as "Ile de Nachtegal". This was 18 years before the islands' official discovery in 1772. The map, titled "Carte des Terres Australes comprises entre le Tropique du Capricorne et le Pôle Antarctique où se voyent les nouvelles découvertes faites en 1739 au Sud du Cap de Bonne Esperance""Map of the Southern Lands contained between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Pole, where the new discoveries made in 1739 to the south of the Cape of Good Hope may be seen"., locates Ile de Nachtegal at 43°S, 72°E, about 6 degrees north and 2 degrees east of the accepted location of Grande Terre. It is possible this early name was based off 's ship "De Zeeuwsche Nachtegaal". First official discovery The islands were discovered by Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec, a navigator, on 12 February 1772. One 13 February 1772, a day after the discovery by de Kerguelen-Trémarec, Charles de Boisguehenneuc landed and claimed the archipelago for the French crown. A second expedition was organised by de Kerguelen-Trémarec in 1773, where they arrived at the "Baie de l'Oiseau" by December of the same year. On 6 January 1774 he commanded , his lieutenant, to leave a message notifying any passersby of the two passages, as well as of the French claim on the islands. Thereafter, a number of expeditions briefly visited the islands, including that of Captain in December 1776, who verified and confirmed the passage of de Kerguelen-Trémarec by discovering and annotating the message left by the French navigator. In 1874–1875, British, German and U.S. expeditions visited Kerguelen to observe the . Whalers, sealers and fishers (1792 - 1850) in Port-Christmas in December 1776 (by John Webber, 1784)]] Soon after their discovery, the archipelago was regularly visited by whalers and sealers, most of whom were either British, American or Norwegian. These hunted after the resident populations of whales and seals to the point of near extinction, e.g., the in the 18th century and the in 19th century. The first whalers and sealers arrived in Baie de l'Oiseau on Christmas Day of 1792 and set up the foundations of what later would become Port-Christmas. These whalers and sealers were from in the . They set up camp on the Halage d'Estaing, which became their main base as they travelled across the islands. During their travels they set up other contemporary bases, namely Port-Couvreux on the Presqu'île Bouquet de la Grye, Port-du-Cimitière on the Île du Cimitière, and Port-de-l'Île d'Ouest (sic) on Île de l'Ouest, all in 1793. In 1798, a fleet of fishermen from sailed for Port-Christmas, and from there spread across the northern outer islands, founding Saint-Lanne Gramont (later to be known as Lanne Gramont on Île Saint-Lanne Gramont and Port-Recques (later to be known as La-Société-de-Géographie) on Presqu'île de la Société de Géographie in the same year, Port-Foch on Île Foch in 1799, Port-Joffre on Presqu'île Joffre and Port-de-Passage-des-Deux-Îles on Îles MacMurdo and Howe in 1800, and Port-de-Presqu'île-Hoche and Port-d'Île-du-Port in 1802. In the 1820s, the American explorer and sealer captain Benjamin Morrell landed in Christmas Harbour and made it his official residence for the hunting of seals in the area. As the fishers of the northern islands still frequently returned to their home in La Réunion, Morrell is considered to the first official inhabitant of the Kerguelen archipelago. In 1932, a group of fishermen from La Réunion brought their wives and children with them to permanently settle on the Kerguelen Islands. Port-Recques, Port-Foch and Port-Joffre were the first existing bases which became official permanent residences for families, whilst farmers from La Réunion created small communities, e.g., Port-Accessible in 1833, Plaine Ampère in 1835, and Côte de la Vallée des Sables in 1845. Whalers and sealers also established more bases along the coast of the Kerguelen, founding L'à Pic, Le-Doigt-de-Sainte-Anne, Bougainville and Monaco in 1834, and Les Lacs in 1842. In 1825, the British sealer John Nunn and three crew members from the Favourite, were shipwrecked at where currently À les Phoquiers is located. They were rescued in 1827 by Captain Alexander Distant during his hunting campaign. The remnants of their three years of having lived there were used to build the village of À les Phoquiers, after how Nunn explained in broken French to their French rescuers where their possessions were located. Beginning of permanent inhabitation (1850 - 1870) , showing the Landing of the Three Fishing Boats at Port-Joffre.]] The 1850s saw an influx of permanent inhabitants, most of them fishermen and their families from La Réunion looking for new opportunities on the Kerguelen Islands. During the Great Southern Indian Ocean migration, fishermen from La Réunion sailed southwards and settled permanently on the Crozet Islands, Amsterdam and Saint-Paul Island, and the Kerguelen. The first batch of these immigrants arrived at Port-Joffre in 1851 in an event that has become known in Kerguelen history as the Landing of the Three Fishing Boats, or Le débarquement des bateaux de pêche in French. This was the arrival of three fishing vessels from La Réunion carrying a total of seven fisher's families at Port-Joffre, who landed there and built their homes, increasing the total number of permanent homes in Port-Joffre from three to twelve and increasing the local population from three to 22. Between 1852 and 1857, another 520 fisher's families, comprising around 2,500 individuals, migrated to the Kerguelen to settle there. In addition to migrating to already existing settlements, these migrators several new villages, most notably La-Village-de-Fjord, La Bourdonnais, Monaco, D'Entrecasteaux on the south coast, as well as Val Studer, the first inland settlement of the Kerguelen, founded by five farming families travelling south from Port Accessible. Incorporation into the Colony of Madagascar (1870 - 1900) Though the archipelago had been in jure claimed by French explorers as belonging to the French Republic, in reality the islands were de facto stateless as they had neither been made an official territory nor had they been incorporated into another official territory or colony. This changed in 1873, when the French Republic moved to incorporate the Kerguelen archipelago into the Colony of Madagascar together with the Crozet archipelago and the islands of Amsterdam and Saint-Paul. In 1874, the colony was divided into districts, with the Kerguelen becoming a single district known as Les îles des Kerguelen. The capital of this newly formed district became Port-Christmas, with the official residence of the district administrator located there. The Kerguelen saw a gradual but continuing influx of immigrants, mostly from Réunion, between 1870 and 1900, with an eventual peak of around 15,000 in 1895. The influx saw a small number of additional communities created, several of them further inland, but in general it meant the increase of already existing communities to accomodate the growing number of inhabitants. The increase in population also necessitated the creation of farmland on the islands, though this remained at quite a small scale, consisting mostly of several smaller farming communities located in the inland regions, like Val Studer and Aux-Lacs-d'Hermance-et-d'Entr'Aigues. A small number of farmers built ranches in the central inland regions of the main island for the herding of cattle, mostly cows and sheep. Lastly, the Sables Valley was agriculturised, mostly for the growing of wheat and other grains, so that it became possible for the islanders to bake their own bread. Scientific interest (1840 - present day) Notes Category:History of the Kerguelen Islands Category:History of the Southern Indian Ocean Islands